Must-use Web 2.0 apps

TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington chimes in with his list of “must-use” Web 2.0 apps. I pretty much agree with the value on most of them, but they’re not the ones I use. I’m going to limit myself to the ones I use almost every day.

Google Reader

I’d have no hope of keeping up with anything without Google Reader. I tried Bloglines and liked it and I tried NetNewsWire and didn’t.

Skype

Arguably not a truly Web 2.0 app, Skype certainly fits the bill culturally. I’ve almost convinced my household to switch to Skype exclusively and drop POTS calling. I use Skype as my main IM tool and would use it for calls all day except for the fact that most client sites I work on block it…

del.icio.us

It took me nearly a year to “get” del.icio.us. Don’t ask me why, I don’t know either. It’s now been almost 12 months since I added a link to a browser; del.icio.us gets them all and consequently, I have them all, anywhere, and so does anybody else that might be interested. Latest links are right there in the blog sidebar.

Flickr

I bought myself a Flickr Pro account this year, and gave one as a Christmas gift to my friend, Matthew. When Yahoo adds decent geodata for Australia, it will become truly indispensable, for now, it’s simply great.

WordPress

The engine beneath acidlabs’ blog, WordPress is arguably the best blogging platform out there. Flexible, easy to use and eminently usable “out of the box” WordPress is ripe for the picking (and I predict will be bought by someone big this year). Akismet is the greatest anti-spam plugin since forever.

PandoraFM

Bringing the best of both last.fm and Pandora, PandoraFM is explicitly supported by both services. You have to use it to get it, but it offers the social networking aspects of last.fm and the music-centric super-brain of Pandora. All in a mashup. Living proof that mashups are here and useful, not just web-trickery.

allofmp3

While the legality of allofmp3 is arguable in some jurisdictions, it’s still the second-largest provider of digital music out there. And it’s all DRM-free, which means you can play it on any device you like.